Sacrifice
by Taluliaka
Summary: EV. This is his world, his dream, his memory. Twenty years, he had endured. And only now, on the night of his death, did he truly live for the first time. Only the sky dared witness his sacrifice.
1. Sacrifice

_Here do I present my latest offering to the FanFiction altar in response to requests that I continue. _

_This fic shall be more than one chapter in length, my persistent friends. I hope you enjoy this angle._

**Disclaimer: **_I do not own this concept, this movie, these characters, or these symbols._

**Sacrifice**

Bursts of scintillating light, burning against the darkness...

Thunderous chords shaking the very earth in a familiar triumph...

Thousands of heads turned skyward, watching the future descend...

This is his world, his dream, his memory.

It is right that he should witness this, his world made flesh. Right that he should not be part of the fantastic explosion, but watch from afar until the life shudders from his body.

* * *

Evey had created a grand funeral procession, complete with overture and explosives. A true Viking send-off. 

And yet here he sat, on an anonymous roof of London, the idea stripped away and painted across the sky in a burst of sparks. His name. His symbol. Not blood-red, like the life that drained from his body and stained the ground, not black, as his clothes, the mask's cold eyes, the handles of his knives, but white. Flushed with the glory of new hope, of peace, a fierce white.

He wondered if Evey was watching his final display. His _coup de grâce. _

Somewhere from his haze of pain came a sharp spike and his breath hissed. Dying never got any easier.

The mask felt so heavy, spangled with bullets, a sharp circle of steel. But even now, at the bitter end, he had not the courage to remove it. The ghoulish grin was as much a part of him now as any other limb.

Twenty years, he had planned this revenge. Twenty years, he had endured.

And only now, the night of his death, did he truly live for the first time. How cruel that love had come now, the moment when he most wanted to die.

* * *

The fireworks had faded now. 

His letter drifted in a haze of smoke, disappearing into the night sky.

All was dark. The people drifted off, free.

A shower of grinning masks were laid down in breathless homage on the lawn where so many had stood. All watching the sky. Silently approving. Except one.

* * *

It was so cold. His wounds had faded from fire to ice. There was nothing more to give through those bullet holes. The black fabric of his cloak was heavy with blood and offered no warmth. The stars offered no light. Her face swam over his clouded vision. 

He drew a knife, its blade glittering, a deadly point of death.

He wondered vaguely if Evey should ever return to his Shadow Gallery, his domain of shadows and beauty. He wondered if she should ever find the note he had written, a few scraps of song that had once meant something.

"_So when the last and dreadful hour_

_This crumbling pageant shall devour,_

_The trumpet shall be heard on high,_

_The dead shall live, the living die,_

_And music shall untune the sky_."

He raised the knife to eye level, appreciating its beauty. How could something so beautiful be used for such carnage? And, oh, the death he had wreaked upon his victims.

He was an idea no longer. He was just a man. Guy Fawke's visage could no longer hide him.

Raising the knife to his wig, he deftly cut the scraps of leather that held it in place.

And only the sky dared witness his sacrifice.

* * *

She stood. 

Not a frightened girl, not a confused child. Cleansed by rain, by lightning. Her dark eyes were filled with peace.

Somewhere a voice sent a prayer.

A breath. A promise. A vendetta.

"_Evey._"

A woman and a mask searched the sky for hope…

And found the dawn.

* * *

_Please review, if it doth pleaseth you._

_The song lyrics are from John Dryden's poem, a song created for Saint Cecilia's Day, 1687._

_**Taluliaka**  
_


	2. Edge of Oblivion

_Sorry this took a while. I am exploring new pathways with several other works. I also got reared up at and struck by a horse, which complicates matters…It hit my typing hand! Well one of them…_

_So doth I persuade this story to venture from its moorings and accompany me into the shifting chords of unknown seas._

**Disclaimer: **_I do not own this concept, this movie, these characters, or these symbols._

**Edge of Oblivion**

Sleep eludes her, and she hates him for it.

He lingers in these walls, every shadow concealing a harlequin smile. And it is not only her imagination, straining to snarl the threads of fate and bring them back to that icy station, where he eyed his fate in one of those blank windows.

And accepted that proverbial gauntlet.

She will have to leave. But not tonight.

* * *

She has found his room, a door where once she was sure there was none. 

His costume hangs from one corner. The faint smirk ricochets off the broken glass, spilled like teardrops, and rebounds around the room. Her skull throbs with the weight of his empty gaze.

Blood leaks slowly onto the sheets. Small pieces of glass twinkle from her hand, like bracelets of blood. But with that pain comes release. One of her sleeves is wrapped tightly around the wound but it has become limp. Her world is shattered.

She stares, trying hard to accept. But it is so hard when he stands in the corner and watches her, when his scent arises from the bed, when she can almost hear the soft rumble of his voice from the jukebox, which croons the song they danced to with such fleeting passion.

She slides through the soft waves of sleep, between scintillating dream and the tranquility of silence. But there is no peace.

Not yet.

* * *

On the smooth marblewood table to her right, shines the deadly beauty of one of _his _knives. She wonders, gracelessly, if she has the courage to choose a lover's death. 

_Lady, come from that nest  
Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep:  
A greater power than we can contradict  
Hath thwarted our intents._

There is no Paradise for suicides. God is cruel, as cruel as the blade she holds unsheathed, as cruel as a thousand bullets. The handle pricks her hand like thorn and she lets it fall onto the sheets.

_...Yet folllow you I would, under thy lady's dark sails, to the edge of oblivion. There content would I perish without grace, or hope of salvation..._

Words spoken long ago. An empty promise? Or a vision? Did the author see into her future and despair?_  
_

Was she capable of such? Perhaps it was simpler, long ago. To sacrifice your own life for the unknown. For the future.

_For love._

The jukebox's timeless voice dies away.

She slides one finger over the delicate handle, and sighs away her grief.

She sleeps again.

* * *

Somewhere, a windchime mutters, dancing in ethereal twirls at his passing. A gloved finger smoothes over her parted lips, light as the touch of essence itself. 

He turns his eyes to the naked blade.

_This sight of death is as a bell, that warns my old age to a sepulchre._

She does not stir. Despair's pale shadow wings above her with moth-fire eyes.

For a moment he contemplates. The sun stirs, far to the east. A new world dawns, for those with the eyes to behold.

But she is undisturbed.

* * *

When she wakes…. 

But not yet.

Not yet.

* * *

_The quotes in italics are from Romeo and Juliet, Act V. _

_Sym...bo...lis...m!_

_I didn't even notice that until just then, either._

_"Yet follow you I would, under thy lady's dark sails, to the edge of oblivion. There content would I perish without grace, or hope of salvation." _

_That quote is mine and is part of a sonnet I wrote called "Lament". _

_Please let me know what you thought. _

_**Taluliaka**  
_


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